Separating beauties from beasts

Category Archives: Beauty Tool Reviews

Two weeks ago, I reviewed a mini bottle of Quo by Orly True Love. Although it was nice, I mentioned how I stamped over it to make it more me.

This Pink & Black Star Konadicure was the result!

I stamped the full-nail star pattern from Konad Image Plate m84 over my manicure using the black Konad Special Nail Polish.

Since it was my first time using the m84 Konad plate, I’ve included a photo of it as well as a brief review of this pattern near the end of this post in case you’re interested.

Also, my cuticles are really messy because I did a quick job at removing the black polish from my skin. My ‘secret’ is just letting the shower remove the rest of the polish – much easier! Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to snap photos of the cleaned-up version. Hope you don’t mind. 🙂 Continue reading →

I don’t wear mascara anymore, and I tend to wear dark eye looks a lot, so you might not realize that I have somewhat long lashes, but I do.

Each morning, I curl my eyelashes not only so they make me look more awake, but also so they don’t sweep the lenses of my glasses.

I’ve tried a few eyelash curlers, and my favourite is the Tweezerman Professional Classic Lash Curler.

A little while ago, I was in the market for a new good eyelash curler. I was ready to get the Shiseido one, but then I saw it only came with 1 refill pad. (You can get Shiseido replacement pads, but they’re around $6 each – rip-off!) So I ended up going back to my trusted favourite: Tweezerman!

It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Every lash curler should come with several refills and/or additional refills should be sold for a reasonable price.

Oftentimes, I end up throwing out my curler (even though the device itself still works) just because the pad has worn away and there’s no replacement.

What I like about this Tweezerman lash curler is that it comes with 4 pads, costs a little over $10 CAD, and the curve fits the shape of my eyes perfectly. Continue reading →

The easiest way to do nail art is with nail-stamping image plates. It may take a little bit of practice to get the hang of it, but once you have the basics down, you’re golden!

Several months ago, Matty ordered me the 25-Piece Bundle Monster Image Plate Set from the official website as a gift. 🙂 (Thanks, Matty!) Even though this is just one set, since there are so many image plates, I’m considering this haul-worthy!

At just $21.99 USD, it was a stellar deal especially since Konad image plates are around $6-7 USD each.

If you’ve followed Swatch And Learn for a while, you’ll see that I’ve done a few designs already using some of these images. Plenty more to come! 🙂

In this post, I’ll present photos of each image plate so you can see all the designs, and I’ll show you how the film peels off and what the backing looks like. I’ll also give you a quickie review based on the images I have tried using so far. Continue reading →

I’ve been seeing a lot of cool What’s in My Travel Makeup Bag YouTube videos and blog posts this summer. Thought I’d join in and show you what products I take. Plus this is very timely since I’m actually going on a short romantic ‘trip’ soon. I’m staying within the city, but he and I always have a great time.

But before I go into the details about what I’m taking with me, I’d like to blab a little bit about myself first. If this bores you, you can scroll down this post to get right to the makeup. 🙂 Continue reading →

I don’t really drink milk except with my cereal, but I love eating cheese and ice cream…just not together.

So, my way of saying thank you to all the cows out there for producing milk was through Alien Cow Nail Art!

In university, one of my classmates was obsessed with cows to the point where she always had to buy any clothing that had cartoon cows on them! And she was so proud that every single pair of socks she owned featured cow prints!

I like cows, but apparently not nearly as much as she did!

Do you like cows? Are you lactose-intolerant? Do you sometimes feel the urge to say “Moo!” to strangers?

Edit: Apparently they’re supposed to be giraffe heads, but they totally remind me more of cow heads because of the shape.

Hehe, so I changed this to “Alien Cow Nails” since they look like cows with antennae! :p

If you decide to replicate this, you may want to remove the horns to be more accurate! Or…you can just have fun like I did! 😀